Spring Has Not Yet Sprung

...but it's coiled.

We've already been Maple sugaring once and we hope to go again, soon. It was a gloriously slushy, wet, puddley day. There were patches of ice and snow as well as pools of water and plenty of mud. When Alex's foot got stuck he said to me, "The mud ate my boot!" The air was sweet smelling, crisp and cool, and the sun was warm and strong.

Today, while we were out, there were flurries of snow that picked up into near blizzards and then dropped off suddenly. Gusting winds carried the flakes, rocking them and suspending them such that Simeon was sure "they never land!"

Oedipus, the snowman

The seasonal change is certainly here with its crazy mix of elements and it has turned our yard into one, great, sloping ice rink. Our snowman has shriveled and his eyes have fallen out, poor thing.

Simeon meets his brother, Zachary, for the first time. March 2004.

Whenever the seasons change, my memory draws me back to that same season from years before. Sometimes it is just one year before and sometimes I suddenly have remarkably clear memories from many years before. This spring I am reminded especially of the spring of 2004; the spring that Zachary was born. Something about this approaching spring, more than last spring or the one before, is bringing to mind those little hands, his funny expressions, his first bath, the blooming tulips outside...

I love the effect seasonal change has on my memory. I find the returning to different seasons of life, experienced in the same season, somehow comforting. I guess I'm a true New Englander.

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